Skeleton Dance
by Pyromaanii
Summary: Zorin is dead, but she doesn't realize it right away. When it finally hits her, she has an excruciating time wrapping her head around it.
1. Chapter 1

_A/n: Zorin is actually one of my many favourite characters, but as much as I like her, she went out like a bitch, and it was pretty hysterical. I've always wanted to write a fic about Zorin, but couldn't think of anything to write about. Then I heard the song "Skeleton Dance" by Arch Enemy, and it spurred some ideas on in my head, and I came up with this. I've **never **wrote Zorin before, so excuse me if she's out of character._

* * *

_Skeleton Dance_

An eerie silence consumed the atmosphere.

Zorin couldn't hear a single thing. She lay there, uncertain, of what was going on. Most importantly, she didn't even know where she was. Her eyes were closed, and she was so tremendously exhausted that, at the moment, she couldn't find one miniscule shred of strength to open them. She was laying in a pile of _something_, and she could feel the velvety texture of it against her skin. This feeling was hard to register, however, because of the immense pain that was overwhelming her body. Her left hand was dully throbbing, but her face particularly was in acute pain. What didn't help, is that she was laying on her stomach, and her face lay on the hard floor. _"I have to get up,"_, she thought to herself. _"I don't even know where I am. I can't just lay here."._ She spent a few seconds gathering her strength, and with a pained groan, she finally sat herself up.

"My face," she growled, "my _fucking face_!" Her hands came up and she rubbed it, hoping she'd alleviate the pain by even just a sliver, but found that she couldn't. She groaned in pain, and cradled her head in her hands, her elbows coming to rest on her knees. "What the fuck _happened_?" She said into her hands, her voice muffled and hardly understandable.

She sat there like that for a few minutes more. Throughout this entire time, she had yet to open her eyes, and so she was still unaware of her surroundings. She took her hands off of her face and opened her eyes. The first thing she noticed, was what she was sitting in. Her hand came down to touch the substance, and she rubbed it between her fingers, smearing the dust across them.

"_Ashes," _she thought to herself. Her eyebrows furrowed down in confusion, _"I am laying in a pile of ashes."_

Her head came up, and she looked around her.

Bodies, but mostly body parts, were strewn everywhere. Blood covered absolutely every foot of the hall she sat in. Her eyes widened in horror when she realized that most of these remains belonged to her men.

"That's right," she said, picking up the discarded helmet of one her soldiers, "We attacked the Hellsing mansion. That must be where I am," She tried to stand up, but found that she needed some support, so she braced herself against the wall, gritting her teeth as the pain stabbed at her as she stood up.

The first thing she noticed after standing up, was her scythe sticking out of the floor several feet away from her. She raised an eyebrow, walking towards it. She grabbed onto it with one hand, thinking it would be an easy pull out of the floor. But when she tugged, it wouldn't budge. "The fuck?" She said, now using both her hands to pull it out. It still would not move. She tugged and tugged, using every fiber of her being to pull it out, but found that she couldn't. "VERDAMMT!" She screamed, still tugging. "What the fuck is wrong with me that I can't even pull this out of the fucking floor?" She finally let go of of her scythe, stepping away from it. Her hand came up and ran through her hair as she sighed in frustration.

She then realized she had probably been making a lot of noise, and looked around to see if anyone was there to hear her. No, the hall was still littered with corpses. Just corpses. She looked down one end, and saw the mercenary's body in the middle of the floor. She grinned, remembering the accomplishment. "Filthy insect," she said to herself, with a 'hmph'.

As she then spent her time inspecting the bodies, she realized that the woman, Seras Victoria, was not amongst them. Confusion overthrew Zorin. "Where the fuck is she? Is she dead?" Zorin decided there was only one way to find out, so she began walking to search for her.

The entire mansion was destroyed. Zorin felt pride in this, but it didn't last long when she saw that all of her men were dead. It did surprise her, but at the same time it didn't, because she was the only one that survived. Zorin found herself back in the main hall of the manor, and after not having found Seras Victoria, she gave up and left.

"_What happened?" _she thought to herself, walking across the lawn of the estate. _"Did I kill her? But if I did, then where the fuck is her body?" _

Zorin stopped when she heard voices. She heard them coming from behind her, and she whipped around at the sound of them. It was two of the mercenaries, and they were coming right in her direction.

"_Why aren't they attacking?" _Zorin searched her pockets for any sort of weapon, but found none. She got into a fighting stance, readying her fists, but they dropped when the mercenaries walked right past her.

"...Seras completely obliterated that bitch," The blonde one said, in disbelief, "I'm going to be so fucked up after seeing all this shit, man!"

Zorin turned in their direction to see them walking away, her mouth agape. They didn't even notice her! They walked right past her! Zorin's teeth grit and she stormed after them, her fists ready again.

"Hey! You fucking dipshits! Can't you see I was standing right there? Hey!" When she caught up to one of them, she threw a punch. There was no collision. Instead, her fist went right through his head, and she tumbled forward, landing onto the ground. Zorin's eyes almost bulged out of her head. "What the fuck?" She said, her voice strangled and cracking. She looked at her hand she had used to punch, and then at her other. _"Did I miss?" _

She stood back up, staring in the direction of the mercenaries. "They didn't even hear me though," she muttered, "They didn't even notice when I fell! Right beside them!"

Zorin's hands came up and tugged at her hair in frustration, "What the fuck is going on?" She then recalled what the mercenary had said, Seras had 'obliterated her'. There was only one other 'her' that was there, and that was Zorin.

"But I killed her. I had to of." Zorin said, "Because... because I'm standing right here."

Zorin looked down at her hands again, inspecting them. She paused when she noticed the smear from the ashes she had touched.

"The ashes," she said, looking back at the mansion, as if she could see right through its exterior and at the pile of ashes she knew was inside. Zorin slowly sat down, her head falling into her hands.

"I can't be dead." She said weakly. "I always win. I never lose a fight."

Suddenly Zorin was exhausted, and she fell onto her back, and she stared at the sky above her.

"I can't be dead, because I'm still here."

She tried replaying what had happened that night in her head, and found she could not. All she could remember was killing the mercenary. After that, she was blank. She closed her eyes, she kept starting the night over from the beginning, piecing everything back together, but it stopped at the same part each time she did it. One thing did finally come to mind, and it was Schrödinger. He had come up along somewhere, and he said something to her, but again, she could not remember what. What she did remember, was that what he had said pissed her off, but it was important. Usually, Zorin found that everything that came out of that boy's mouth was astronomically useless, but not this. Schrödinger had taunted her somehow, like he did with everyone. _"What the fuck did he say?"_

She opened her eyes again, staring off into the starless night sky.

"I can't be dead," she said, over and over, "I can't be dead. I'm right here. I woke up. I'm right here."

"_But if I'm not dead, then what were those ashes?" _

Zorin shook her head, "Those weren't mine. They couldn't have been. I can't be dead."

"I'm the best they've got," she said, her hands clenching up into fists, "They wouldn't have just sent me here to die!"

She was silent for a few moments after she said that. _"That's exactly what they would have done," _she thought to herself. "That's exactly what they did to all of us."

Zorin's chest tightened. The foreign feeling of defeat began to drift throughout her entire body. The exhaustion that had overrun her body doubled, and she didn't move a single inch as she lay there on the ground. Her mouth felt like it was stuffed full of cotton balls.

"They sent me here to die," she said aloud, her voice cracking. "They're probably laughing about it. Like they laughed about the rest of them," she thought of all the other Millennium members who had died. She had laughed about them dying too.

She didn't feel angry, which mildly surprised her in the back of her head. Instead, the feeling of defeat continued to saturate her senses. "The Major sent me here to die, and now I'm dead. Not only am I dead, but what am I? A fucking ghost? Am I a fucking ghost and I'm stuck here now? I'm stuck at the place of my utter defeat?

"To them, I was disposable. I can't say I was useless, because they were good at using me. They knew I was going to die. They sent me here just to die, they sent me here to die, and now they're probably laughing that the fuck up."

Her eyes screwed shut, and she used the last of her remaining strength to let out an irritated scream of pure frustration. Now she felt the anger rising. Defeat wasn't a familiar feeling, but anger definitely was. She was angry all the time. But right now, she was absolutely seething. Her whole body began to shake. "They sent me here to die," she growled out. She began to repeat it to herself over and over.

"I'm too good to be used like this! I didn't deserve this!" She shouted. "They can't do this to me!"

Her hands came up and covered her face. _"But they already did." _She thought.

"_That woman didn't kill me. They did." _Her eyes stung.

"What do I do now? Or is there anything that I even _can _do? What even happens once you're dead? Is this it? Am I like this for the rest of eternity?"

Zorin couldn't believe what was happening to her. Rather, what had already happened. Not only was she angry, but for once she felt stupid. She felt so stupid that she had let it happen. That she had let herself die.

"_If they were here, they'd be dancing on my grave."_


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: I wasn't going to continue this fic, and then I thought to myself, "Zorin as a ghost? SO MUCH POTENTIAL!" So I decided to continue it. i originally put one of the genres as angst, but I decided to change that, because I wrote some more chapters and they're a little more on the comedic side instead. Because, like I said, Zorin as a ghost holds so much potential. I hope this chapter can be enjoyed. _

* * *

Zorin was alone now.

Not a living soul occupied the Hellsing manor, except herself, though, she was no longer living. When she tried to wander off the grounds, she found that she could not. Now she was certain that the possibility was there, but she was trying to avoid using that word at all costs. 'Ghost'. How preposterous. But this was beginning to sound exactly like the horror stories she had heard when she was younger. They never scared her, because she never believed they were real. But now she was beginning to feel like she was living in one.

"Well if that bitch comes back, I'm haunting her ass." She said aloud, kicking at some bullet casings that littered the ground. "That Integra cunt, too. They're both getting haunted. I'm gonna fuck their shit up."

She now wandered the corpse riddled hallways of the mansion. She walked right through the bodies that were scattered about, which, began confusing her as she thought back.

"I couldn't move it, but I could touch my scythe. But when I try to touch people, I go right through them."

She scratched the back of her head as she stared down at one of her men. She couldn't even recognize him, his face was so disfigured. Then she realized she probably wouldn't of recognized him before he was killed. She didn't pay attention to those in the ranks beneath her.

_Disposable._ She thought to herself. _Just like me_.

By this point, Zorin was walking around in circles. "This is already getting real fucking old." She muttered, leaning against a wall. The wall supported her being, to her surprise. The proverbial light bulb flickered on above Zorin's head at that moment, and she began to dig through her pockets. When her fingers brushed the polished metal of her cigarette case, she pulled it out. Her hand then procured her lighter. She looked at both of the objects in her hands, turning them over and inspecting them, though nothing appeared to be different.

"Maybe I can touch them because I died with them on me." She said aloud. "Or maybe because I've had them for so long. Like they're a part of me."

Experimentally, she chucked her lighter at the body of a mercenary. It bounced right off his head with a thud, and then landed on the floor beside him with an even duller one. Zorin raised an eyebrow.

"So I can touch it, and it can touch people, but I can't touch people. And I can touch my scythe, but I can't move it."

She pressed her hand against the wall, pushing. She only pushed herself away from it.

"I can touch the wall, and I won't go through it. Which makes sense, because I've been walking all over this fucking creation. If my hand would go through the wall, then surely my feet would go through the floor."

She went to her lighter and picked it back up. In all of her confusion, which was turning into stress, she took a cigarette out and lit it. When it lit, and she found herself being able to breathe the toxic smoke in, her eyebrows went up.

"This is just fucking baffling." She said, puffing again on her cigarette. She continued down the hall and pushed open the first door in arm's reach. Poking her head in, she found it to be a room that was completely in tact. "Huh. Thought we destroyed the place."

She inspected the room from the doorway. Bookcases lined the walls, and in front of the expansive windows at the front of the room sat a large desk. Zorin concluded that this was Integra's office.

"Well, if I can touch shit, I'm sure as hell going through hers." Zorin said, only slightly amused. She walked over to the desk. Piles of papers, folders and binders were on the desk, along with a large glass ash tray and a phone. Slowly, as if she were afraid it would come alive and bite her, she tapped a thick binder. When her finger made contact with the imitation leather surface, she made an interested noise. She flipped open the cover of the binder, scanning the pages. It was notes of some sort, all in rushed, messy script, that managed to have a perfect tilt to it.

"I can't even read this shit," She said, picking up the binder and bringing it closer to her eyes. "Is this even fucking English?" Then she scoffed, "Ja, it has to be. Like that uncultured twat speaks anything but English." She continued flipping through the binder, but was finding the writing to become even more illegible. She set it down and picked up another binder. When she opened it up, she found it all to be information on Millennium.

"Nothing I don't already know," She said, finally inhaling on her cigarette, "But damn, these assholes were going in blind." She set the binder down, collapsing into the cushioned office chair that sat behind her. She opened the top middle drawer of the desk, digging through it. Upon contact with a silver pen, her skin sizzled and she retracted her hand quickly.

"That's fucking weird." She said. She poked the pen, her skin sizzling once more, and she pulled her hand away.

"Silver still hurts me." Then she remembered something she had heard years ago when she first joined the military, that silver has a negative effect on ghosts, as well as just about everything else supernatural.

"And I guess I'm a ghost. Unless I walk out into the sun tomorrow and burst into flames."

Zorin put her cigarette out in the glass ash tray that occupied the desk, looking at all the cigar butts that were piled in it, almost to the point of overflowing. "Does this bitch clean up anything? Her desk's a mess, that's alright, but she can't even empty her fucking ashtray?" She rolled her eyes, digging through the rest of the drawers. All she found was fancy office supplies and high class cigars. Disinterested, she pushed herself away from the desk and stood up.

"Where's this bitch's room? I bet she has some nice shit."

* * *

Zorin spent what seemed like an entire half hour looking for Integra's room. She finally was convinced she found it, when she entered it and noticed how disastrously messy it was. She kicked aside some books that were in an oddly neat pile in front of her, some of them opening as they flew through the air, loose papers scattering the floor beneath, and then all colliding with the surface beneath them. She noticed a jewelry chest in the corner of the obnoxiously large room, and made her way over to it.

"I bet she doesn't even wear jewelry, she just hoards all of it. I'm going to open this thing up, and it's going to be full of shit, and I bet she's worn less than a quarter of it for more than two minutes her entire life." Zorin muttered, opening the top of the jewelry box. There were at least a dozen crosses, all in various sizes, and all were silver save for two. They were gold, and one was decorated with opal gemstones.

"Mine now, bitch." Zorin said, stuffing both of the crosses in her pocket.

As she dug through the rest of the jewelry box, anything that was not silver entered her pockets, followed by a "Mine."

"I can't do anything with this shit, but I'm not letting her have it." She snickered as she opened the last drawer of the jewelry box. Inside was a lone, red silk bag. She opened the bag and fished out a rather small Rolex watch, with at least a hundred small diamonds encrusted around the face of it. She ran her fingers over it, surprised to find that it was not silver. She flipped it over, seeing that it was engraved in pretty cursive.

"'To my darling Integra on her ninth birthday. Love, Father'." Zorin grinned, "Oh, this is _definitely _mine." She shoved the watch into her pockets, which were becoming a bit heavy, but she didn't mind much.

Zorin went through the rest of the room, but became less interested, for all she found were practically antique books and filthy ash trays. She picked up a jacket that hung over an armchair and held it up.

"Damn she's tiny. I bet this wouldn't even fit Schrödinger." She discarded the jacket on the floor, where it joined many more articles of clothing.

"Isn't she loaded? Can't she afford someone to clean this place up?" Zorin said, her eyes drifting along all the items that covered the floor. She looked at a pair of shoes next to the bed. "Jesus Christ, she has some big fucking feet. Though, I'm one to talk." She shrugged and made her way out of the room.

"The vampires' rooms are in the basement... I wonder what kind of shit they have."

* * *

"This guy is fucking BORING!" Zorin yelled as she went through Alucard's room. She threw open the lid of his coffin and wriggled her nose as the musty scent of dust and earth filled her nostrils. The only item that occupied the coffin was a black leather-bound book. It looked ancient. She picked it up and flipped it open. Page after page was filled with tiny, neat cursive.

"Now this, I know for sure, is _not _English." She scanned the pages for words she might be able to recognize.

"This is Romanian, if I remember correctly." Zorin then clucked her tongue, "Well ja, it's going to be in Romanian. He's from fucking Romania."

Some pages had blood stains on them. On one particular page, drops of blood were scattered about. Where the blood had made contact with the then fresh ink, the words were smeared if they weren't completely covered in blood.

"This must be his diary," Zorin laughed aloud, flipping through the pages. "The little girl cries when he writes in his diary. What a fucking joke!" She laughed harder, and tried seeing if she could translate any of the words, but found she could only do so to simple words and phrases. A lot of it was curse words, and the word "useless" was reiterated often.

Zorin checked the dates that were printed before each entry, starting from the first page, going to the last entry. "Scheisse, this goes back almost three hundred years." She flipped through it one more time, then closed it, tossing it back into the coffin. "Well, I know where to find it when I want a good laugh."

Zorin made her way to the final room of interest, Seras Victoria's. She kicked open the door and walked inside, surveying the room. Like Alucard's, it contained near to nothing, save for a photo of the girl's parents that she taped to the inside of the lid of her coffin. "What a baby." Zorin said when she saw the picture, slamming the lid back down and examining the room once more. She concluded it as boring, and left.

Zorin went back upstairs, shuffling through the rest of the manor, in search of something to do. "Being dead is boring when you don't have someone to fuck with." She said aloud, going into a room filled with books. She grabbed a random one off the bookcase and sat down in rather comfortable armchair, propping her feet up on the ottoman in front of it. She opened the book and began reading the first few pages of it, but seeing as how it was boring like everything else on the property, she fell asleep.

* * *

Zorin awoke, and was surprised to see that it was still night outside. She groaned, sitting up in the chair she sat in, the book in her lap falling to the floor with a thud. She looked around the room, confused at first as to where she was, but then the past few hours rushed back at her. "I fell asleep. Because ghosts can do that now. Right." Zorin said, shaking her head. She stood up, kicking the forgotten book out of her way, and exiting the room. She stood in the middle of the hallway, her eyes closed and her hands over her face. "I'm still here. Is this what I get for being such an asshole all my life? I don't go to heaven or hell, I just become a ghost and get stuck in the enemy's house?" Zorin removed her hands from her face, and then paused when she heard shuffling come from around the corner.

_You've got to be kidding me, _she thought to herself, slowly walking towards the noise. _Someone's alive._.. _or dead. _

Zorin rounded the corner and then stopped right in her tracks. Two feet in front of her stood Seras Victoria, and she was looking right at Zorin.


	3. Chapter 3

Immediately, Seras went into attack mode and lunged through the air to tackle Zorin. Zorin, surprised, didn't move, and watched as Seras fell right through her. The shorter woman fell to the ground, an 'umph' escaping her. Zorin turned around to look at her, a hand coming up to scratch the back of her head.

Seras turned her head to look back at her enemy, her eyes widened slightly, before narrowing.

"What sort of dirty tricks are you playing on me?" Seras asked, her voice raised, standing up and putting her only fist up.

Zorin rolled her eyes, "I'm not playing any tricks."

Seras ignored Zorin's words, coming at her again. She stumbled as her fist failed to collide with Zorin's face, and she ended up on the other side of her. Seras, once more surprised, looked down at her hand.

"You're not going to be able to touch me." Zorin said, stepping in front of Seras so she could see her.

"I don't remember it, but I'm sure you do. 99.9% positive you killed me."

"Then why are you _here_?" Seras growled out.

"I think I'm a ghost."

Seras scoffed, looking towards the ceiling. "A ghost. You honestly expect me to believe that?"

"Listen, bitch, if I could hurt you don't you think I would have done it by now?" Zorin asked, crossing her arms against her chest.

"Exactly. This is a _trick_, you're making me think you're a 'ghost',"

"I heard the mercenaries say that you killed me. Which means you know you killed me. Did I attack you after you did it?"

Seras didn't answer.

"No, because it _wasn't a trick_. I'm _**dead**_."

Seras still didn't say anything.

"I can't touch anyone, living or dead. Trust me, I tried. All I can do is touch inanimate objects." Zorin punched the wall for example, showing Seras that her fist would make contact with it. She then held her hand up, shaking it a little in Seras's face to say, "See?". She then tried to poke Seras's arm, and Seras watched as the tattooed hand went through her.

Seras mumbled something quietly, and Zorin couldn't catch what she said.

"If I could hurt you, I would have done it by now." Zorin repeated. She said this calmly, an odd look on her face.

Seras stared at the taller woman, her arm dropping to her side. Silence swallowed the two. They simply just stared at each other. Seras, with a look of disbelief on her face, Zorin, with the same odd look. Seras observed this expression. This woman, who showed up so sure of herself, hellbent on destroying Seras and everyone and everything around her, who almost succeeded, looked broken down and defeated. Seras's mouth set into a firm line. She honestly didn't know what to say to her.

"Look," Zorin finally said, Seras's eyebrow going up as she began to speak again, "I can't hurt you anymore."

Seras blinked. "Can't you just leave?"

The German woman shook her head, "I tried to. I can't get as far as the lawn. I'm stuck here."

Seras groaned, stomping her foot a few times, "This isn't real! This can't be happening!"

"Ja, I wish." Zorin muttered, rolling her eyes.

A childish whine emitted from Seras and she pressed her head against the wall. "Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? I'm the good guy here. I was just trying to save lives. That's all. But no, this has to happen to me. Of course. Stuff like this always happens to me. That's just my luck!"

Seras continued ranting for some time, a few times thumping her head against the wall. Zorin watched with mild interest, an eyebrow raised the entire time. She wondered if this was what Seras was like every time she was faced with a non-threatening problem. She then wondered if she was really a non-threatening problem. She decided that no, she was not a threat, even though she was going to use her ghostly presence to haunt the residents of the manor for the rest of their lives.

When Seras was quiet, a smirk showed up on Zorin's face. "You done?" She asked.

Seras didn't answer her, her head still pressed against the wall.

"I mean, you're right, this is bad, but it's not _that _bad. At least I'm dead."

Seras let out a bitter laugh, turning her head to look up at the taller woman. "Yeah. At least you're dead. At least you're dead and a ghost, who can't leave."

"I can't hurt you."

"That's not what I'm worried about." Seras ground out.

"Is Integra here? I can't hurt her either. I tried hitting one of the mercenaries when I saw them walking away from me. I went through him. I can't hurt you." Zorin repeated the last words sternly.

Seras finally moved away from the wall, her hair ruffled a bit. She kept her eyes on Zorin.

"So we lost, right?" Zorin asked, looking down at Seras.

"Did you honestly think you would win?"

Zorin shrugged, "I was certain we would. I thought you were gonna be such an easy kill."

"That kind of attitude is what ended up killing you."

Zorin was quiet.

"I'm surprised you're not verbally assaulting me right now." Seras said.

"Is that what you want me to do?"

Seras rolled her eyes, "What's the point? I hate you, but we might as well be civil since you're stuck here."

"Like I want to be civil."

"You've managed to do so since I saw you."

"Yeah, well, I plan on haunting this place and making your life a living hell."

"Have fun. I can still _see _ you."

"Integra probably can't."

Seras gave Zorin a glare.

"I'm going to open and slam doors all night, and throw shit, and make spooky ghost noises,"

"Oh _god_," Seras groaned, her head falling into her hand.

"Ja. I'm gonna haunt this place up."

"If I tell Integra you're a ghost, then she'll just be expecting it. And I can see you, so I'll know everything you do. Doesn't that take the fun out of it?"

"Nope. I know it's going to annoy the shit out of you."

Seras sighed and turned on her heel, walking away.

"Where are you going?" Zorin asked.

"Back to bed."

"It's still nighttime."

"And I'm still tired."

Zorin followed Seras.

"So you seriously are just going to ignore me now?"

"Why? Are you a baby? Do you need attention?" Seras asked in a baby voice.

Zorin frowned. "Whatever, bitch."

"Call me whatever you want. I'm going to ignore you. You can do whatever you like, but if I ignore you, then eventually you will tire of it."

Zorin followed Seras all the way to her room, where Seras went in and closed the door in Zorin's face. Zorin simply opened it and walked in.

"What are you going to do? Watch me sleep?" Seras asked, laying down in her coffin.

"No, I'm going to keep you from sleeping."

"How do you plan on doing that?"

"Maybe I'll just scream really loud for a while."

"Please, don't."

Seras closed the lid of her coffin, curling into a ball.

Zorin stood there staring at the coffin for a minute or two, contemplating what she would do to annoy Seras. She decided to sit next to the coffin, and began drumming her hands on the lid. She could hear Seras groan.

"_Stop_." Seras growled.

"Nein, I don't think I will." Zorin said, a smug grin on her face as she continued drumming.

Inside the coffin, Seras closed her eyes and rolled onto her stomach, pressing her face into the cushioning, and covering her ears with her hands.

_I just gotta ignore it,_ she thought to herself.

Zorin drummed on and off for about five minutes, Seras silent the entire time. Finally, she gave it a rest, and pulled her hands away, resting them in her lap. She could hear Seras breathing heavily, and assumed she was asleep.

"Seras?"

Silence answered her.

Zorin huffed, and slammed her hand down on the lid. "Seras!"

Seras, inside, jolted out of her sleep, and mumbled something before laying her head back down.

"I promise I'll stop making noises if you answer me."

"Okay. What?"

"Were you sleeping?"

"For a few minutes, yes."

"Am I bothering you?"

"With your wretched voice, yes."

Zorin pursed her lips, "My voice is wretched?"

"It sounds bad in my ears. How else do I explain that?"

"Your voice isn't so pleasant, either. English accents annoy the hell out of me."

"I could say the same about German ones."

Zorin didn't reply for a minute, and Seras took that as a sign she could try going back to sleep. Then Zorin said, "Really? My voice is wretched?"

Seras groaned, "If I say no will you shut up?"

"Maybe."

"You promised you'd stop making noises."

"Exactly. I promised I'd stop making noises. Not that I'd stop talking."

Seras sighed.

"Your voice is fine."

"So is yours. I just really hate English accents."

"Your reasoning there?"

"Not because I hate English people, though I do. It's just there are some really annoying English accents."

"I didn't hate German accents until I heard the Major speak for the first time. His voice was so annoying."

"I kinda agree with you there."

Seras actually laughed a little.

"When my master changed into his original form, his voice changed too, and I almost couldn't take him seriously. His accent was so stereotypical. Like Bela Lugosi." Seras said.

"Wow." Zorin said, chuckling, "That is kinda funny."

"He looked hot as hell, though."

"You have got to be kidding me."

"With the beard. And the hair. You didn't see him, you just wouldn't understand."

"I saw him without a beard and I wasn't impressed."

Seras rolled her eyes, even though Zorin couldn't see. "I think you say this because you're inclined towards women."

"I can still form an opinion on how attractive a male is. And I'll say it again. I wasn't impressed."

"Well, _I _was."

Zorin laughed, "That's so gross."

"Why?"

"He made you a vampire. He's like, your dad."

Seras thought about that for a second. "Oh my god. _Oh my god_."

Zorin laughed again.

"I never thought of it like that. I just always looked at him and thought, 'Master'. I never looked at him and thought, 'Dad'."

"Well now the next time you look at him you will."

Seras was smiling until that point, "I don't know if there will be a next time."

Zorin looked at the coffin, as though she could look through it and at Seras. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know how it went down. I wasn't there. But he disappeared."

"Oh." Zorin said, and she remembered what Millennium had in store for the ancient vampire.

The lid of the coffin then opened, and Seras looked right into Zorin's face.

"Do you know what happened? Sir Integra won't tell me."

Zorin thought for a second, then shook her head. "Nein, I really don't know."

Seras sighed, closing her eyes.

Zorin then wiggled her nose. "Wow. Have you realized we've been talking to each other without insults for at least fifteen minutes?"

Seras raised an eyebrow, opening her eyes. "You're right. See? I told you you'd be alright if we were civil. You seem to be fine. Being polite didn't detrimentally harm you."

Zorin rolled her eyes, "You were right about the whole 'if I ignore you, you'll get bored' thing. I was only making noise for about four minutes before it got old."

Seras nodded, with a "hmph" that said, "I told you so".

"I have a question, though." Zorin said.

"What's that?"

"I killed that mercenary. I destroyed your home. I destroyed your homeland. You could be saying some very cruel shit to me right now. But you're not. Why?"

Seras was quiet for a moment, then she shrugged. "That's an easy question."

"It is?"

"Yes. I understand the situation we're in right now. I'll be having to deal with you for a long time. So the first answer to that question is that. I have to deal with you. I might as well try and make it pleasant." Seras then exhaled. "The second answer is because, even though you've done awful things to myself and the people around me, I'm not going to lower myself and belittle you. If I did that, I would be just like you the first second you got here. Belittling the Geese and I. I'm not like that, if you haven't noticed. Though, I said some choice words to you before I killed you."

"I don't remember being killed. All I remember was killing the mercenary you flipped out over."

"His name was Pip, by the way. I basically just called you evil in so many words. Then I killed you."

"That's it? You called me evil?"

Seras nodded.

"You didn't even call me a bitch?"

"No. I just told you. I'm not going to lower myself to your level."

Zorin didn't say anything.

"I have a question for you, then." Seras said.

"What's that?"

"How come you're being civil?"

Zorin pressed her mouth shut and looked away from Seras when she heard the question. Her hands balled up in her lap, and she exhaled out of her nose.

"Well?" Seras asked.

Zorin, still looking away, her eyes trained on the floor, began her response with a mutter.

"I can't understand what you're saying." Seras said.

"I said," Zorin said, now looking at the ceiling, "It's kind of a respect thing. When I came here I thought you were going to be so easy to kill, and that you were worthless. I thought you were so weak. You were beneath me. And we were fighting, and you were proving me right. And then I woke up. And I was dead. For real, this time. I'm not a vampire anymore. I'm dead. You killed me. And all my men. And now we're both here."

Seras's arms crossed against her chest as she watched Zorin's face.

"Now _I'm_ beneath _you_. You're the one who lived. You defeated my superiors. And when I woke up dead, I realized something. That I didn't mean anything to my superiors, they used me for their personal gain. They knew what was going to happen to me. Sure, the Major warned me about you, but he didn't flat out tell me, 'Oh, hey, Zorin, chances are, you'll die'. He just let me go. They didn't send me here to fight. They sent me to die.

That's what they did to all of us. They knew we didn't stand a chance. That was all a part of the Major's scheme. I honestly don't think he cared about whether he won or not. He just wanted war. I was perfect because I was cocky and thought I'd destroy you and that I'd bring us one step closer to annihilating the Hellsing organization and England. But I didn't. And I'm pretty sure that they all got a fucking laugh out of that."

Neither of the women said anything for a few minutes, and they sat in their silence. Seras thought about what Zorin said. About her superiors not caring whether she died or not. That sounded accurate. That sounded like Nazis. It sounded even more so like them when she said they probably laughed about it. Seras knew they did. The Major always had a smile on his face, he was amused no matter what happened. And he was probably amused that Zorin died, probably because he did warn her, and probably because she chose to ignore him. Seras thought it was odd that Zorin chose to fight for people who didn't care about her. Even though Seras didn't have a choice, she would still be reluctant to fight for Hellsing if Integra or her master didn't care about her. She knew they did care, though. They just had odd ways of showing it.

All of the vampires of Millennium fought because they thought they were hot-shots and that they would win. They fought because they wanted the thrill of the battle. Seras thought that was disgusting. What was so great about killing? What was so great about destroying lives?

Seras noticed Zorin was facing the floor, her eyes screwed shut. She looked frustrated more than anything. Seras didn't blame her. Millennium played Zorin like a fiddle, and she ended up making a fool out of herself.

While Seras was thinking, Zorin was as well, and little did either of them know that they were practically thinking the same thing. Zorin thought about minutes before, when Seras said she didn't want to lower herself to Zorin's level. "Lower". That's what Seras thought of her. That she was beneath her. Zorin always shit-talked during a fight. She did it before and after. But there wasn't an after for her with her fight with Seras. The only after was her being dead, and now being a ghost. She wondered why she wanted to fight. What point there was to it. What did she get out of it? Besides an over-inflated ego? Is that why she did it? To feel good about herself?

An odd feeling grew in Zorin's chest. A different feeling from when she realized she was dead. Zorin was foreign to many different emotions. Usually, all she ever felt was haughty or angry. Surprisingly, for being dead, her face felt hot, like she was embarrassed. But no, that's not was she was feeling. She decided, what she was feeling was similar, but not the same. Zorin thought she felt ashamed.

She felt ashamed because she let herself be used so easily. She felt ashamed because she didn't win. She felt ashamed because Seras could say something like, "I didn't want to lower myself to your level". People didn't _rise _to her level, they lowered to it. Zorin knew she fought for a destructive and vile cause. That was why she did it. But she didn't know why that was why she did it. What in her life spurred her on to be like that?

Which brought Zorin to another feeling that began to gnaw at her. Like when she realized she was dead, Zorin felt stupid. She felt like an imbecile. In all actuality, Zorin realized, she did what she did purely to be a menace. To be intimidating. To cause harm. To cause fear. She didn't do it for a just reason. Zorin felt even more stupid when she thought about who she did it for. She gave her entire being to a cause and people that were not going to reward her, whether she lived or died. Especially if she lived.

It was still quiet. The women were not looking at each other, and both were trying to gather their thoughts on what to say next. Finally, Zorin decided she would speak first.

"You were right." She said, her voice unsteady.

"I was right? About what?" Seras asked, confused, looking at the tattooed woman.

Zorin was still facing the floor, though her eyes were open now. "About me being evil."

Seras didn't reply.


End file.
